Jason Momoa as Conan the Barbarian...

[fajrdrako]

This evening I went to the preview showing of Conan the Barbarian.

Am I a big Conan fan? Not really, though I was once, heavily under the spell of the magnificent comic by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith. Still among my favourites. And because of my love of that comic, I read vast quantities of Robert E. Howard stories, and read the comic long after I was actually enjoying it.

So: the movie excited me, a little. Particularly after seeing Jason Momoa as Kohl Drogo.



Watching the movie I kept thinking, "I've seen this before... No, I read this scene before... in a Robert E. Howard story." Which has to be a good thing. True to source and all.

1. I'm not big fan of 3D movies. This would have been so much better if it hadn't been in 3D. It didn't even look three dimensional to me, it looked like flat pictures arranged in three dimensional space, like a series of flats. Worse, the fight scenes (of which there were many) were speeded up in such a way that I couldn't tell what was happening. Sometimes I took off my 3D glasses and everything looked better, but only briefly, because then it would get blurry again and I'd have to put them back on.
   
   
2. Despite that, the first half of the movie was good. Leo Howard, who played Conan as a boy, was terrific - and beautifully cast. I believed he would grow up to be Jason Momoa as Conan. (If only he'd played the young Captain Jack in Torchwood, too.)
   
   
3. Loved he depiction of ancient civilizations. I always liked that in the books, too, and in the comic. Howard liked to play Conan as the Noble Savage pitted against the effete, vicious and decadent people of the cities, but I always loved his cities and wished I could visit them.
   
   
4. Best visual was a brief moment in which we saw two statues that looked like the ones found at Numrut Dag.
   
   
5. Loved the scenes of the ship, too.
   
   
6. There was some rather satisfactory visual borrowing from The Lord of the Ringe, leading me to expect, in the climactic scenes, that the Balrog would rise from the depths and Conan would say, "You shall not pass," and kill him. Sadly, that didn't happen, as they seemed to forget the movie needed a climax, and that the evil priestess had magic at her metal fingertips, and her evil father was turning into a God.
   
   
7. I liked the initial scene with the girl in the temple. And she had the best line of the movie:
   
   Conan: You look like a prostitute.
   Tamara: I must be the first woman you've met who isn't one.
   
   
   
8. I liked Conan's friend, the thief - was that Remo? I kept thinking of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. that being said, why did Conan need him along? All he needed was the key, and Remo, if it was Remo, screeched in terror more than the girl.
   
   
9. I did, however, like it that the girl (who screeched sometimes) had courage and wit as well as sex appeal. She was no Lena Headey, but she was okay.
   
   
10. Great costuming.
    
    
11. Considering it was supposed to be a first-class Cimmerian sword that a warrior had to earn the right to be worthy of, it was pretty feeble: the girl could lift it with one hand, and when Conan grasped it by the blade and kept all his fingers, I lost all respect for it.
    
    
12. Good action, feeble magic. When the magic mask grew tentacles and moulded itself to the villain's face I thought maybe we were getting somewhere. Nope.
    
    
13. And why did the dead demon witch stop possessing Tamara just when she got a foothold?
    
    
14. That being said, the magic sand-warriors were great.
    
    
15. On the other hand... Jason Momoa had some wonderful moments of both physical drama and human beauty. I wanted to freeze some frames as posters and put them on my wall.
    
    
16. The popcorn was delicious, but my throat hasn't healed enough for popcorn: I started to cough so badly I had to stop. Pity. Maybe I can eat it tomorrow.